Beer has Stockton name - for now

Stockton should have a brewery of its own. That’s Kiel Batanian’s ultimate vision.

Meantime, the city’s got a specially-crafted beer — Stockton Session, with its late-summer tropical aroma — named after it. For 10 days, that is.

The third Stockton Beer Week — today through Aug. 31 — might perk the palate for a permanent label.

“In the last three years, people here have been open to embracing more varieties of beer,” said Batanian, 23, a University of the Pacific graduate who’s a “certified beer-server” at The Abbey Trappist Pub in Stockton. “But we’re still not on a par with some of the big markets. We’ve come a long way in the last four years.

“I’d like to see Stockton have some breweries. I’d really like to have a tasting room in Stockton. That would be great. A new beer. That’s something I would love to do.”

Dust Bowl Brewing Co., a small Turlock operation founded and operated by folks from Hilmar, has encouraged Batanian. It’s their first specialized brew, too.

In two months, they produced 10 barrels — 250 pints each — of Stockton Session. Batanian was inspired to “emulate” festivals in more-populous communities, where unique brews are crafted annually during similar events.

Stockton Session — $5.50 a pint, only on-tap — will be available at five of 22 participating businesses and establishments (see accompanying box) just during these 10 days.

“It’s cool on the palate,” said Batanian, a native of Pittsburgh, Pa., who makes his own home brews. “It’s got really cool hops. It’s easier to drink right on the palate. It smells great. Tropical fruits like mango. It’s really right upfront with a little bitterness, but not overwhelmingly aromatic.”

Mosaic, “relatively new,” said Chaffee, and Amarillo, both from Washington state’s Yakima Valley, were used by brewmaster Don Oliver, a Dust Bowl co-founder from the Hilmar area.

“I tasted it while it was still in the tank,” Chaffee said. “I think we hit the mark exactly. We wanted an easy-drinking beer with lots of flavor and aroma. We hit it out of the park.”

The brewery, named after the founders’ family heritage of “riding the rails” to escape the 1930s Dust Bowl — Hops of Wrath, Black Blizzard, The Great Impression and Hobo are among its beers and ales — “still is a pretty small operation, but we have more demand than we can make,” Chaffee said.

Dust Bowl’s production has increased to 4,000 barrels in 2014. It was 2,800 last year: “We’re maxed out, and we’re building on to the brewery.”

Batanian, who’s worked at Abbey Trappist Pub for two years, can envision a similar Stockton situation someday.

While studying international relations, he “discovered” the art of craft beer brewing. At 20, he spent a semester studying in Berlin, exploring European — particularly Belgian — beers, ales, lagers and their histories.

“I was very fortunate studying German lagers, wheat and some of the crazy styles over there,” at the end of his sophomore year at the Free University of Berlin (in the former West Berlin).

“With brewing and understanding international relations, there’s a lot of crossover,” he said. “Especially after the (Second World) War in Belgium.”

That helped when he returned to Stockton, determined to make craft beers his major subject. Stockton’s Ryan Haynak and Kevin Hernandez opened the Abbey Pub in 2011. It’s now owned by Brian Pollard.

Batanian’s preparing to become a “certified” beer sommelier, too. Abbey-style (bitter) beer is brewed under a designation only given to Trappist monks in Belgium. Sweet brews aren’t under that restriction and become labeled Chimay and Rochefort, among others.